US President Donald Trump on Thursday again returned to his rather maverick diplomacy by taking the extraordinary step of tweeting out a letter from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un which promises to end the nuclear standoff.
The four-paragraph letter — an upbeat missive in which Kim reiterates hope in a “new future” and speaks of his “invariable trust” in Trump — is dated July 6, the day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in North Korea for what turned out to be acrimonious talks with Kim’s regime.
“A very nice note from Chairman Kim of North Korea,” Trump tweeted alongside a copy of the letter. “Great progress being made!”
Addressing Trump, Kim describes their June 12 summit in Singapore, and the resulting joint statement, as the “start of a meaningful journey.”
“I firmly believe that the strong will, sincere efforts and unique approach of myself and Your Excellency Mr. President aimed at opening up a new future between the DPRK and the US will sure surely come to fruition,” Kim writes, according to the translation tweeted by the president.
“I deeply appreciate the energetic and extraordinary efforts made by Your Excellency Mr President for the improvement of relations between the two countries and the faithful implementation of the joint statement,” he adds.
Speaking after his visit to Pyongyang last week, Pompeo insisted the denuclearisation talks were making progress and were being conducted in “good faith.”
But in stark contrast, Pyongyang’s take was overwhelmingly negative, with the North warning that the future of the peace process was being jeopardized by “unilateral and gangster-like” US demands for its nuclear disarmament.
North Korea has long trumpeted a denuclearization goal, but one that it sees as a lengthy process of undefined multilateral disarmament on the entire Korean peninsula, rather than a unilateral dismantlement of its nuclear arsenal.
